Any tips on Lucid Dreaming?

It was simple for me.I used to have nightmares about getting attacked by bears.I finally told myself before I went to sleep that I would fight back if I dreamt of bears again.Sure enough,it happened.I fought back and wasn’t bothered by those dreams for a long time.Until recently.
What does that mean?? Oh,never mind ;)

I’ve taken a class on dreaming with Carl Jung’s works as course material. In the class we were told to write down what we wanted to dream of or what actions we wished to take, then put the paper under our pillow and sleep on it. As well, we were told to log our dreams in a journal for reference, as soon as we woke up to ensure the data were fresh in our minds. This included waking from nightmares at 3 am and writing immediately.

In a work by Carlos Castaneda whose title I don’t recall, it was suggested that one try to look at their hands during a dream. Tell yourself, whatever you do in your dreams, I want to look at my hands. Thus far, I’ve only accomplished this twice, and both times led into a more lucid dream.

I am very successful at lucid dreaming.
You need to develop triggers for acknowledging you are dreaming. For example, electronic switches fail to work correctly in a dream. I recognize dead realitives as being dead, therefore I am dreaming.

It takes time and concentration :) Work your way slowly. I agree with filmfann saying you need to acknowledge you are dreaming. Do you have a dream journal ? Get a dream journal first and write down your dreams.

Go on youtube. They have a lot of videos on how to Lucid dream. Some are very helpful.

I have always been a lucid dreamer, can tell myself in a dream ” you’re dreaming, wake up” and I do. I don;t know why, but, 90% of the time I recognize a strange dream for what it is and I simply wake myself up. I don;t know if some peoples brains are just more ‘on’ even when sleeping or what? lol

I had a dream a year or so ago that I drove my car into a river and it rolled over.
The water was very shallow, I got out, I wasn’t hurt, and I remember standing there in the water thinking ” this has GOT to be a dream”...then I woke up. Whew…haha

Practice slow deep breathing and replay this desired dream as you do. Practice will make perfect, Lucid dreaming is a head rush I do almost every morning!

Make yourself a self-hypnosis recording to play as you’re falling asleep. Include triggers and suggestions for what you might want to do or accomplish. Include the instructions that you will wake from each dream and remember everything so that you can write it down.

What worked best for me was making triggers like @filmfann said. What I would do was every time I walked through a door I would touch the door frame and seriously ask myself the question “Am I dreaming right now?” and then take a second to think about it. It will become such a trend for you that you start doing it in your sleep and suddenly one time when you ask yourself “Am I dreaming right now?” the question will be yes. Then the real fun starts :)

Take a little piece of paper, write on it, “Are you dreaming?” put it in your pocket and take it out and read it every two hours on the dot. Then when you are dreaming you will take out the paper (in your dream), read it and you’ll know you are dreaming!

It has worked for me plenty of times. Some people I know say it doesn’t work for them because they don’t dream about taking out the paper. But I think if you do it enough it will eventually happen. Good luck! :D

@DesireeCassandra Your advice reminds me of the saying a rather annoying friend used to repeat again and again. Practice doesn’t make Perfect, it makes Permanent. I think the paper and door jam ideas are worth trying.

Thank you everyone! :D

Dude, I just had the mother of all lucid dream sequences last night, and I wasn’t even trying! I used to try for this stuff with Valerian and sometimes Hops, with some success. But last night, it was a combination of coming down off alcohol, exhaustion, overstimulation, and a diet coke and 2 cigarettes. I couldn’t sleep and got up and fooled around at 3 am. Didn’t get back to bed until 4 am. I was feeling very alert from the mild stims but physically exhausted.

I almost immediately fell into a sequence of three or four distinct full on lucid dreams—I could see, think separate thoughts inside my head, speak in two languages, and know that everything was OK because I was in control, and I could change the dream or even enter another one if I wanted. Suffice to say, I hit on a lot of people much more rapidly than I would in real life ;) I was also much more daring in front of the police than I would be in real life, haha.

I’ve heard that waking up in the middle of the night and staying awake and then going back to sleep can trigger lucid dreams, but I had never tried that route. Apparently it does work!